Announced by Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler on 3 August, the package includes $10 million for La Trobe University, which will work alongside LGBTQIA+ organisations ACON and Thorne Harbour Health, as well as technology company Portable. Together, they will develop a national program designed to help LGBTQIA+ people identify healthcare providers offering safe, respectful and inclusive care.
The program will also establish a voluntary national training and accreditation scheme for primary healthcare providers, while another $8.1 million will fund 18 national and state-based community initiatives. The projects were selected through an independent assessment process administered by LGBTIQ+ Health Australia.
The funding is particularly important given that experiences or even the fear of discrimination can cause LGBTQIA+ people to delay or avoid healthcare altogether. It also builds upon Australia’s National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ People 2025-2035, launched in December 2024 following extensive consultation with LGBTQIA+ communities. The plan addresses issues ranging from mental health and preventive care to health literacy and safer, more inclusive services.
Yet the announcement arrives with an awkward political contradiction.
Just a month earlier, the Albanese government faced criticism after rejecting all eight LGBTQIA+-specific recommendations made during Australia’s latest United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR). More than 120 countries submitted recommendations on Australia’s human rights record, but LGBTQIA+ people were reportedly the only marginalised group for whom the government accepted none of the specific recommendations.
Those proposals were hardly abstract. They included removing exemptions that allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ students and staff, introducing stronger protections for trans and intersex people, implementing a national ban on conversion practices, combating queerphobic stigma through public education and preventing medically unnecessary interventions on intersex children. Australia ultimately accepted only 128 of the review’s 332 recommendations, around 38 percent overall, compared with 51 percent accepted by the previous Morrison government during its 2021 review.
The decision appeared especially jarring for a government that has repeatedly positioned itself as LGBTQIA+ friendly. Anthony Albanese became the first sitting Australian prime minister to march in Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 2023, while his government has since introduced its national LGBTQIA+ health strategy and other inclusion measures. Responding to the UPR controversy, the government maintained that Australia had already made significant progress on queer rights and remained committed to continuing that work.Anthony Albanese became the first sitting Australian prime minister to march Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 2023Responding to the UPR controversy, the government maintained that Australia had already made significant progress on queer rights and remained committed to continuing that work
None of this makes the new healthcare investment insignificant. Community-led programs, inclusive doctors and accessible healthcare can materially improve queer lives. But the contrast illustrates a larger question: can a government meaningfully champion LGBTQIA+ wellbeing while hesitating over the legal reforms intended to protect the same communities from discrimination?
For queer Australians, $18.1 million is welcome. But healthcare access and human rights cannot remain two separate political conversations.
